Young Miniatures - 192th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, Tunisia, 1943

I've managed to capitalize on the Lunar New Year holidays to make the final push to render this project complete.

Despite the limited color scheme of the subject matter this proved to be quite an enjoyable exercise to further my exploration and experimentation in color (undoubtedly inspired from a recent trip to the the Musée d'Orsay in Paris). I forewent on polish and tried to mimic the bold and loose brush strokes of the Impressionists to impart a more dramatic visual effect when viewed in the flesh. I also employed hues of Phthalo Green, Purple Madder and Prussian Blue - applied straight from the tube a la Matisse/Gauguin to provide a stronger illumination for the shadows regions. This was kept to a conservative minimum as the intent was to generate additional value contrast via the difference in hue saturation in tandem with monochromatic value - overdoing this might betray the appearance of the local color. Take for example the intermediate shadow regions of the sand-yellow helmet. I employed glazes of Pine Green in favor of Light Brown as I wanted to create the impression of a bluish shadow - inferred from the work of several notable Impressionist like Monet and Pissarro. I find that this produces a much convincing effect of shadow as brown potentially has a higher tendency to portray dirt.  

I also painted the surrounding environment onto the goggle lens to imply the reflective surface - which naturally works better in context with the scenic backdrop than that of the magenta.

 

Cheers,

Calvin